Jennifer Patience - Questions

I applied to do the course in Hanoi. When I was in Australia in 2006 I applied and was accepted onto the course at Latrobe University, but lack of numbers meant they had to postpone it, and my lack of visa meant I had to leave the country unable to take a later course.

I did think about doing the course while I was in Korea and heard that the British Council in Seoul ran it, but again my timing was bad. I popped in one day to enquire only to find out that they had just finished the One Course that they ran per year and would have to wait until the next year to do it.

Once I knew that I would be leaving Korea a whole new area of options opened up, one of them being Vietnam. You can do the course here in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh city. Same course, just run by different schools – Hanoi’s is through Language Link and International House run the one in HCMC. All the people I spoke to about this recommended Hanoi – not necessarily from experience of doing the course, but for the city.

Other factors came into play also, it was definitely cheaper to take the course here and Vietnam was a country in SE Asia I hadn’t visited yet.

Hanoi sounded like a fascinating place. An interesting mix of colonial French and Asian culture and history. Somewhere that you can get pho from a street stall and then sit in a European style cafe and eat French pastries.  No contest really…   How does it always end up being about food…!

Good question. I’ve been asked it a few times since telling people that that’s what I’m doing. CELTA stands for Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults. It’s organised and accredited by Cambridge ESOL, which is part of Cambridge University, and it is partly due to this that the course is recognised worldwide as a benchmark for ESL training.

It’s not necessary to have done any teaching before taking the course. Neither is it restricted to native English speakers, although there is a tough pre-course test where you need to demonstrate awareness of how English works.   Another reason that CELTA is requested by certain employers, is the certainty they get that the trainee will have had around 6 hours of observed teaching practice. I think this is really useful if you haven’t taught before. It can be nerve wracking stepping into a classroom for your first lesson but if you’ve had a chance to practice and get critique and feedback during your training the more confident you’ll be on your first day. I’m really hoping that the experience I’ve had teaching in Korea will give me something to work from – pick up on any bad habits I’ve developed or reinforce things I do that work well.

The other great thing about CELTA is that, even though is it a Cambridge course, you don’t have to be in the UK to do it!  It can’t be done by distance learning (as some TEFL courses can) because of the practical aspect to it, but if a school overseas is accredited as a CELTA centre you can take the course there.

A great place to start looking, if you are interested in taking the CELTA is http://www.cactustefl.com

They don’t run the courses themselves, rather they act more like an agent: you submit your application through them. There is a good search facility on their website where you can narrow down your search, by course type, country, city etc,. They don’t offer every CELTA course so if your preferred city isn’t listed it doesn’t mean they don’t run a course there.

You can get information straight from the horses mouth here: http://www.cambridgeesol.org/exams/teaching-awards/celta.html